DREAM - 10-27-06 - I was in a small store, similar to a small
roadside store. It seemed to be run by Japanese people.

The Japanese female clerk had been working for many hours and need
to take a break. She picked up a round snack cake in a package and walked
away with it to eat it.

I noticed then that there was a lot of empty spaces on the shelves
which I told to an American woman who was standing nearby who seemed to be
in charge. So she told an American man to fill up the empty spaces with
fancy Christmas wrapped gifts to sell.

I then went into another room where an old Japanese man lay on a
high bed. It seemed he was probably near death.

Then a Japanese doctor came in and lay out some small cutting
instruments (scalpels) on the edge of the bed and six needles embedded
with opium. It was immediately apparent the doctor was going to
inject the old man with the opium needles and then filet the man with the
scalpel knives he had laid out.

So I asked him if that was his plan and he said it was, so I slipped
the needles and the knives back into the case, snapped the case shut and
then picked up the case and swung it so it hit the Japanese doctor in the
head with it.

The case was made of thin leather but it had heavy instruments in it
and it went 'thunk' against the Japanese doctor's head.

I expected the Japanese doctor to defend himself, but he didn't. He
realized his fault against the old man and he just stood there and took
his punishment.

So I hit him in the head again and again, including in the nose and
the eyes until he was bloody and blind.

I asked the doctor if he would be permanently blind and he said,
"Yes!" and yet still stood there quietly while I beat him the head with
his own instrument case until I was sure that he was blind.

I woke up feeling quite distressed at my own violence against the
doctor to stop him from using the opium on his patient.

OPIUM TO HEROIN:

Smack, china white,
horse, black tar . . . all slang names for heroin. We are often told what
happens to our bodies and our minds if we use this drug, but less commonly
discussed is how the byproduct of a simple flower is converted into one of
the most addictive drugs known to man. Also, not discussed much is how
this drug makes its way from far-off growing areas to the United States.
The abuse of heroin-whether by inhalation, ingestion, or injection-is the
last step in a process of many, and it is those preceding steps that we
will discuss. Opium poppyfields in the northern Shan State of Burma.
Flowering Opium Poppy Mexican Black Tar Heroin Heroin #4, also known as
Smack, China White, and Horse.

Heroin is derived
from raw opium gum, which is produced only by the opium poppy plant,
although other varieties of poppy exist. The California, Flanders, and
Oriental poppy are three types grown domestically. Poppy—both the
opium-producing and non-opium-producing varieties—can be found in many
different climates all over the world. Opium poppy has been grown in Asia
for many years, and more recently has been cultivated in Latin America.
About 60 percent of the world’s opium is produced in the remote parts of
Southeast Asia, especially in the aptly named Golden Triangle, which
includes parts of Burma, Laos, and Thailand. Other primary growers include
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Colombia, and Mexico.

The leading producers of opium poppy in the world are the hill tribe
people of Southeast Asia. They live under very primitive conditions with
no electricity and no running water. They are very poor—opium is their
currency, and it is sold or traded for basic necessities like food,
clothing, and utensils. Opium is also used locally as a substitute for
modern medicines because few medical supplies are available in these
remote areas.

Refining raw opium into
heroin is a tedious, multi-step process. Once the opium gum is transported
to a refinery, it is converted into morphine, an intermediate product.
This conversion is achieved primarily by chemical processes and requires
several basic elements and implements. Boiling water is used to dissolve
opium gum; 55-gallon drums are used for boiling vessels; and burlap sacks
are used to filter and strain liquids. When dried, the morphine resulting
from this initial process is pressed into bricks. The conversion of
morphine bricks into heroin is also primarily a chemical process. The main
chemical used is acetic anhydride, along with sodium carbonate, activated
charcoal, chloroform, ethyl alcohol, ether, and acetone. The two most
commonly produced heroin varieties are No. 3 heroin, or smoking heroin,
and No. 4 heroin, or injectable heroin.

The refining process
has been perfected to the point where heroin purity levels are above 90
percent, as the product leaves the refinery. However, as the heroin makes
its way to US, it passes through many hands. To maximize individual
profit, substances that make the heroin less pure and more bulky are added
at each stop. These dilutants are white and powdery just like the heroin
and include caffeine, baking soda, powdered milk, and quinine. By the time
the heroin gets to the user, it is often only about 40 percent pure, and
little is known by anyone involved in the production or trafficking of the
drug about the components of the other 60 percent.

Heroin & Opium Timeline

c. 3400 B.C. The opium poppy is cultivated in
lower Mesopotamia. The Sumerians refer to it as Hul Gil, the 'joy
plant.' The Sumerians would soon pass along the plant and its euphoric
effects to the Assyrians. The art of poppy-culling would continue from
the Assyrians to the Babylonians who in turn would pass their
knowledge onto the Egyptians.

c.1300 B.C. In the capital city of Thebes,
Egyptians begin cultivation of opium the baicum, grown in their famous
poppy fields. The opium trade flourishes during the reign of Thutmose
IV, Akhenaton and King Tutankhamen. The trade route included the
Phoenicians and Minoans who move the profitable item across the
Mediterranean Sea into Greece, Carthage, and Europe.

c.1100 B.C. On the island of Cyprus, the "Peoples
of the Sea" craft surgical-quality culling knives to harvest opium,
which they would cultivate, trade and smoke before the fall of Troy.

c. 460 B.C. Hippocrates, "the father of medicine",
dismisses the magical attributes of opium but acknowledges its
usefulness as a narcotic and styptic in treating internal diseases,
diseases of women and epidemics.

330 B.C. Alexander the Great introduces opium to
the people of Persia and India.

300 B.C. Opium used by Arabs, Greeks, and Romans
as a sedative and soporific.

A.D. 400 Opium
thebaicum, from the Egyptian
fields at Thebes, is first introduced to China by Arab traders.

1300's Opium disappears for two hundred years from
European historical record. Opium had become a taboo subject for those
in circles of learning during the Holy Inquisition. In the eyes of the
Inquisition, anything from the East was linked to the Devil.

1500 The Portuguese, while trading along the East
China Sea, initiate the smoking of opium. The effects were
instantaneous as they discovered but it was a practice the Chinese
considered barbaric and subversive.

1527 During the height of the Reformation, opium
is reintroduced into European medical literature by Paracelsus as
laudanum. These black pills or "Stones of Immortality" were made of
opium thebaicum, citrus juice and quintessence of gold and prescribed
as painkillers.

1600's Residents of Persia and India begin eating
and drinking opium mixtures for recreational use. Portuguese merchants
carrying cargoes of Indian opium through Macao direct its trade flow
into China.

1606 Ships chartered by Elizabeth I are instructed
to purchase the finest Indian opium and transport it back to England.

1680 English apothecary, Thomas Sydenham,
introduces Sydenham's Laudanum, a compound of opium, sherry wine and
herbs. His pills along with others of the time become popular remedies
for numerous ailments.

1689 Use of tobacco-opium mixtures (madak) begins
in the East Indies (probably Java) spreads to Formosa, Fukien and the
South China coast (refs).

Engelberg Kaempfer inspects primitive dens where the mixture is
dispensed

1700 The Dutch export shipments of Indian opium to
China and the islands of Southeast Asia; the Dutch introduce the
practice of smoking opium in a tobacco pipe to the Chinese.

Use of hashish, alcohol, and opium spreads among the population of
occupied Constantinople

1729 Chinese emperor, Yung Cheng, issues an
edict prohibiting the smoking of opium and its domestic sale, except
under license for use as medicine.

1750 The British East India Company assumes
control of Bengal and Bihar, opium-growing districts of India. British
shipping dominates the opium trade out of Calcutta to China.

1753 Linnaeus, the father of botany, first
classifies the poppy, Papaver somniferum- 'sleep-inducing', in his
book Genera Plantarum.

1767 Opium from Bengal continues to enter China
despite the edict of 1729 prohibiting smoking. The British East India
Company's import of opium to China increases in frequency from 200
chests annually in 1729 to a staggering two thousand chests of opium
per year. However, much is for medicinal use. Tariffs are collected on
the opium.

1772 The East India company establishes a limited
monopoly over Bengal opium; the company has general control but the
operation is in the hands of contractors, who advance company funds to
the farmers, purchase the opium produced, and sell it to the company
which then auctions it off to merchants in Calcutta. British companies
are the principal shippers.

1773 - 1786 Warren Hastings, the first governor
general of India, recognizes that opium is harmful and at first
opposes increasing production; later he encourages the the control of
opium by the company hoping that by monopolizing and limiting the
supply he will discourage its consumption. This limited monopoly lasts
throughout his administration and beyond, but when the Chinese market
is discovered, the monopoly shifts from controlling to expanding
cultivation.

1779 First mention of actual trading in opium at
Canton.

1780 British traders establish an opium depot at
Macao. Another imperial edict prohibits consumption of opium and
reiterates prohibition of its sale.

1787 Trade in opium is still less important than
trade in commodities; directors of the East India Company, recognizing
China's objections to the importation of opium, make offers to
prohibit the export of Indian opium to China. However, company
representatives in Canton declare that the Chinese are never sincere
in their declared intentions of suppressing illicit traffic, as long
as the officials issue prohibitory edicts with one hand and extend the
other to receive bribes from the illegal trade.

1793 The British East India Company establishes a
total monopoly on the opium trade. All poppy growers in India were
forbidden to sell opium to competitor trading companies.

1796 Alarmed by increasing use, the emperor of
China issues an edict forbiding importation of opium, as well as
export of Chinese silver that is being used as a medium of exchange.
Now even legitimate trade is limited to barter. Nonetheless, illegal
purchase of opium with silver continues.

1799 The 1799 edict increases traffic through
Macao and other areas beyond government control enabling unprecedented
growth. The British declare only their legitimate cargo, leave opium
on board to be picked up by Chinese mercahnts who smuggle it ashore in
small, fast boats.

A strong edict by authorities at Canton, supporting the emperor's
decree of 1796, forbids opium trade at that port. A concurrent drive
against native poppy growing is initiated. Opium becomes an illicit
commodity.

1800's Patent medicines and opium preparations
such as Dover's Powder were readily available without restrictions.
Indeed, Laudanum (opium mixed with alcohol) was cheaper than beer or
wine and readily within the means of the lowest-paid worker. As a
result, throughout the first half of the 19th century, the incidence
of opium dependence appears to have increased steadily in England,
Europe and the United States. Working-class medicinal use of
opium-bearing nostrums as sedatives for children was especially
prominent in England. However, despite some well known cases among
19th century English literary and creative personalities (Thomas de
Quincey, Byron, Shelley, Coleridge, and Dickens) recreational use was
limited, and there is no evidence that use was so excessive as to be a
medical or social concern.

1800 The British Levant Company purchases nearly
half of all of the opium coming out of Smyrna, Turkey strictly for
importation to Europe and the United States.

Opium becomes identified with official corruption, criminals and
antigovernment secret societies. An edict prohibits domestic
cultivation and repeats the prohibition against importing opium. China
develops an anti-opium policy, at least on paper. Edicts continue to
be issued reiterating prohibitions against importation, sale, and
consumption of opium.

1800 - 1820 Domestic opium cultivation is
encouraged by increased opium use, along with rising prices and
problems with adulteration. It declines after the 1820s, but there
does not appear to have been any call for controls.

1803 Friedrich Sertuerner of Paderborn, Germany
discovers the active ingredient of opium by dissolving it in acid then
neutralizing it with ammonia. The result: alkaloids- Principium
somniferum or morphine. This may have been the first plant alkaloid
ever isolated and set off a firestorm of research into plant
alkaloids. Within half a century, dozens of alkaloids, such as
atropine, caffeine, cocaine, and quinine, had been isolated from other
plants and were being used in precisely measured dosages for the
first time.

Physicians believe that opium had finally been perfected and tamed.
Morphine is lauded as "God's own medicine" for its reliability,
long-lasting effects and safety.

1804 Opium trading resumes at the port of Canton.
Though the 1799 edict is still in force, it has little effect and no
immediate practical change in policy ensues.

1805 A smuggler from Boston, Massachusetts,
Charles Cabot, attempts to purchase opium from the British, then
smuggle it into China under the auspices of British smugglers.

1812 American John Cushing, under the employ of
his uncles' business, James and Thomas H. Perkins Company of Boston,
acquires his wealth from smuggling Turkish opium to Canton.

1816 John Jacob Astor of New York City joins the
opium smuggling trade. His American Fur Company purchases ten tons of
Turkish opium then ships the contraband item to Canton on the
Macedonian. Astor would later leave the China opium trade and sell
solely to England.

1819 Writer John Keats and other English literary
personalities experiment with opium intended for strict recreational
use- simply for the high and taken at extended, non-addictive
intervals

1821 Thomas De Quincey publishes his
autobiographical account of opium addiction, 'Confessions of an
English Opium-eater.'

1830 The British dependence on opium for medicinal
and recreational use reaches an all time high as 22,000 pounds of
opium is imported from Turkey and India.

Jardine-Matheson & Company of London inherit India and its opium
from the British East India Company once the mandate to rule and
dictate the trade policies of British India are no longer in effect.

1832 Codeine was extracted from opium.

1837 Elizabeth Barrett Browning falls under the
spell of morphine. This, however, does not impede her ability to write
"poetical paragraphs."

1839 Opium and its preparations are responsible
for more premature deaths than any other chemical agent. Opiates
account for 186 of 543 poisonings, including no fewer than 72 among
children.

Mar. 18, 1839 Lin Tse-Hsu, imperial Chinese
commissioner in charge of suppressing the opium traffic, orders all
foreign traders to surrender their opium. In response, the British
send expenditionary warships to the coast of China, beginning The
First Opium War.

1840 New Englanders bring 24,000 pounds of opium
into the United States. This catches the attention of U.S. Customs
which promptly puts a duty fee on the import.

1841 The Chinese are defeated by the British in
the First Opium War. Along with paying a large indemnity, Hong Kong is
ceded to the British.

1843 Dr. Alexander Wood of Edinburgh discovers a
new technique of administering morphine, injection with a syringe. He
finds the effects of morphine on his patients instantaneous and three
times more potent.

1852 The British arrive in lower Burma, importing
large quantities of opium from India and selling it through a
government-controlled opium monopoly.

1853 The hypodermic needle was invented.

1856 The British and French renew their
hostilities against China in the Second Opium War. In the aftermath of
the struggle, China is forced to pay another indemnity. The
importation of opium is legalized.

Opium production increases along the highlands of Southeast Asia.

1874 English researcher, C.R. Wright first
synthesizes heroin, or diacetylmorphine, by boiling morphine over a
stove.

In San Francisco, smoking opium in the city limits is banned and is
confined to neighboring Chinatowns and their opium dens.

1878 Britain passes the Opium Act with hopes of
reducing opium consumption. Under the new regulation, the selling of
opium is restricted to registered Chinese opium smokers and Indian
opium eaters while the Burmese are strictly prohibited from smoking
opium.

1886 The British acquire Burma's northeast region,
the Shan state. Production and smuggling of opium along the lower
region of Burma thrives despite British efforts to maintain a strict
monopoly on the opium trade.

1890 U.S. Congress, in its earliest
law-enforcement legislation on narcotics, imposes a tax on opium and
morphine.

Tabloids owned by William Randolph Hearst publish stories of white
women being seduced by Chinese men and their opium to invoke fear of
the 'Yellow Peril', disguised as an "anti-drug" campaign.

1895 Heinrich Dreser working for The Bayer Company
of Elberfeld, Germany, finds that diluting morphine with acetyls
produces a drug without the common morphine side effects. Bayer begins
production of diacetylmorphine and coins the name "heroin."

1898 The Bayer Company introduced heroin as a
substitute for morphine.

Early 1900's The philanthropic Saint James Society
in the U.S. mounts a campaign to supply free samples of heroin through
the mail to morphine addicts who are trying give up their habits.

Efforts by the British and French to control opium production in
Southeast Asia are successful. Nevertheless, this Southeast region,
referred to as the 'Golden Triangle', eventually becomes a major
player in the profitable opium trade during the 1940's.

1902 In various medical journals, physicians
discuss the side effects of using heroin as a morphine step-down cure.
Several physicians would argue that their patients suffered from
heroin withdrawal symptoms equal to morphine addiction.

Several physicians experiment with treatments for heroin addiction.
Dr. Alexander Lambert and Charles B. Towns tout their popular cure as
the most "advanced, effective and compassionate cure" for heroin
addiction. The cure consisted of a 7 day regimen, which included a
five day purge of heroin from the addict's system with doses of
belladonna delirium.

U.S. Congress passes the Pure Food and Drug Act requiring contents
labeling on patent medicines by pharmaceutical companies. As a result,
the availability of opiates and opiate consumers significantly
declines.

1909 The first federal drug prohibition passes in
the U.S. outlawing the importation of opium. It was passed in
preparation for the Shanghai Conference, at which the US presses for
legislation aimed at suppressing the sale of opium to China.

Feb. 1, 1909 The International Opium Commission
convenes in Shanghai. Heading the U.S. delegation are Dr. Hamilton
Wright and Episcopal Bishop Henry Brent. Both would try to convince
the international delegation of the immoral and evil effects of opium.

1910 After 150 years of failed attempts to rid the
country of opium, the Chinese are finally successful in convincing the
British to dismantle the India-China opium trade.

Dec. 17, 1914 The passage of Harrison Narcotics
Act which aims to curb drug (especially cocaine but also heroin) abuse
and addiction. It requires doctors, pharmacists and others who
prescribed narcotics to register and pay a tax.

1923 The U.S. Treasury Department's Narcotics
Division (the first federal drug agency) bans all legal narcotics
sales. With the prohibition of legal venues to purchase heroin,
addicts are forced to buy from illegal street dealers.

1924 Heroin Act - made manufacture and possession
of heroin illegal.

1925 In the wake of the first federal ban on
opium, a thriving black market opens up in New York's Chinatown.

1930's The majority of illegal heroin smuggled
into the U.S. comes from China and is refined in Shanghai and Tietsin.

Federal Bureau of Narcotics was created.

Early 1940s During World War II, opium trade
routes are blocked and the flow of opium from India and Persia is cut
off. Fearful of losing their opium monopoly, the French encourage
Hmong farmers to expand their opium production.

1945-1947 Burma gains its independence from
Britain at the end of World War II. Opium cultivation and trade
flourishes in the Shan states.

1948-1972 Corsican gangsters dominate the U.S.
heroin market through their connection with Mafia drug distributors.
After refining the raw Turkish opium in Marseille laboratories, the
heroin is made easily available for purchase by junkies on New York
City streets.

1950s U.S. efforts to contain the spread of
Communism in Asia involves forging alliances with tribes and warlords
inhabiting the areas of the Golden Triangle, (an expanse covering
Laos, Thailand and Burma), thus providing accessibility and protection
along the southeast border of China. In order to maintain their
relationship with the warlords while continuing to fund the struggle
against communism, the U.S. and France supply the drug warlords and
their armies with ammunition, arms and air transport for the
production and sale of opium. The result: an explosion in the
availability and illegal flow of heroin into the United States and
into the hands of drug dealers and addicts.

1962 Burma outlaws opium.

1965-1970 U.S. involvement in Vietnam is blamed
for the surge in illegal heroin being smuggled into the States. To aid
U.S. allies, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sets up a charter
airline, Air America, to transport raw opium from Burma and Laos. As
well, some of the opium would be transported to Marseille by Corsican
gangsters to be refined into heroin and shipped to the U.S via the
French connection. The number of heroin addicts in the U.S. reaches an
estimated 750,000.

1978 The U.S. and Mexican governments find a means
to eliminate the source of raw opium- by spraying poppy fields with
Agent Orange. The eradication plan is termed a success as the amount
of "Mexican Mud" in the U.S. drug market declines. In response to the
decrease in availability of "Mexican Mud", another source of heroin is
found in the Golden Crescent area- Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan,
creating a dramatic upsurge in the production and trade of illegal
heroin.

1982 Comedian John Belushi of Animal House and
Saturday Night Live fame, dies of a heroin-cocaine- "speedball"
overdose.

Sep. 1984 U.S. State Department officials
conclude, after more than a decade of crop substitution programs for
Third World growers of marijuana, coca or opium poppies, that the
tactic cannot work without eradication of the plants and criminal
enforcement. Poor results are reported from eradicationprograms in
Burma, Pakistan, Mexico and Peru.

1988 Opium production in Burma increases under the
rule of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), the
Burmese junta regime.

The single largest heroin seizure is made in Bangkok. The U.S.
suspects that the 2,400-pound shipment of heroin, en route to New York
City, originated from the Golden Triangle region, controlled by drug
warlord, Khun Sa.

1990 A U.S. Court indicts Khun Sa, leader of the
Shan United Army and reputed drug warlord, on heroin trafficking
charges. The U.S. Attorney General's office charges Khun Sa with
importing 3,500 pounds of heroin into New York City over the course of
eighteen months, as well as holding him responsible for the source of
the heroin seized in Bangkok.

1992 Colombia's drug lords are said to be
introducing a high-grade form of heroin into the United States.

1993 The Thai army with support from the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Agency (DEA) launches its operation to destroy thousands
of acres of opium poppies from the fields of the Golden Triangle
region.

Oct. 31, 1993 Heroin takes another well-known
victim. Twenty-three-year-old actor River Phoenix dies of a
heroin-cocaine overdose, the same "speedball" combination that killed
comedian John Belushi.

Jan. 1994 Efforts to eradicate opium at its source
remains unsuccessful. The Clinton Administration orders a shift in
policy away from the anti- drug campaigns of previous administrations.
Instead the focus includes "institution building" with the hope that
by "strengthening democratic governments abroad, [it] will foster
law-abiding behavior and promote legitimate economic opportunity."

1995 The Golden Triangle region of Southeast Asia
is now the leader in opium production, yielding 2,500 tons annually.
According to U.S. drug experts, there are new drug trafficking routes
from Burma through Laos, to southern China, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Jan. 1996 Khun Sa, one of Shan state's most powerful drug warlords, "surrenders"
to SLORC. The U.S. is suspicious and fears that this agreement between
the ruling junta regime and Khun Sa includes a deal allowing "the
opium king" to retain control of his opium trade but in exchange end
his 30-year-old revolutionary war against the government.

Nov. 1996 International drug trafficking
organizations, including China, Nigeria, Colombia and Mexico are said
to be "aggressively marketing heroin in the United States and Europe."

Finally got around to reading the article. Obviously, it was written
by a young
person who thinks that 125 years ago was a long time ago, i.e. ancient
history!
Mark Twain (Sam C.) was there at about that time working for the local
newspaper and
wrote all sorts of satirical stuff about Virginia City - even how he and
some
friends hiked up to Lake Tahoe and inadvertently started a forest fire.
He also
invested in some of the mines or claimed he did - and usually lost his
shirt.

Mining was a rough business and certainly many minors were injured. The
only pain
killers at that time were laudenum and morphine <
http://opioids.com/morphine/
>
I doubt that those who recreated on drugs had access to needles. Most
of them
at that time smoked opium in Chinese pipes. You certainly never threw
away a needle
or a syringe - they were too valuable! You resharpened them over and
over again
even when I was in the military in the 1950's we sterilized and
resharpened
needles. There was no such thing as a throw-away needle! I'm sure that
it was a
doctor's office where the needles were found.

Virginia City in those days was not a staid city in Virginia with its
segregation
and high society. It was a rough and tumble mining camp where people
from all over
the world came to get rich - and most didn't. There were many blacks in
the west by
that time so finding "black" DNA on a needle shouldn't be very
surprising.

You're right, Ann. Determining sex isn't that easy. I wonder if that
wasn't just a
little poetic license so the reporter could mention prostitution and
related
diseases - makes the story more interesting. Don't you think that only
mtDNA would
have survived the time?

> This is believed to be the first time DNA has been recovered from
historical
> artifacts -- in this case, a discarded syringe and six needles.
According to
> the article, they were able to establish that there were at least four
> people, and at least one of African descent. I am guessing that mtDNA
was
> analyzed for these conclusions.
>
> The article also mentions in passing that DNA can be used to establish
> gender. This would require nuclear DNA, probably testing the
amelogenin gene> which is found on the X and Y chromosomes. The gene on Y chromsomes is
longer.
>
>
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&;
> u=/ap/20020225/ap_on_re_us/old_west_dna_1
>
From:
http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/GENEALOGY-DNA/2002-02/1014796216

Whether legal or illegal, opium is by far the most successful drug
in human history. Over the course of centuries, opium has touched more
people than aspirin.

Opium has inspired great art and literature, provoked wars and
funded terrorists. Opium has been cultivated for its narcotic effects
since the earliest days of recorded history, and even today, it's a
huge component of mainstream
medicine and the
recreational mind-fuck market.

Derived from the poppy flower, opium is usually harvested as a
resin extracted from the plant's seed pods. The resin can then be
smoked or consumed in its raw form, or processed for intravenous
application.

Opium was cultivated for its narcotic effects at least as far
back as 4,000 B.C., and possibly a lot further. In its least processed
form, the drug conveys a sense of peace and contentment, in addition
to alleviating pain.

The poppy was first grown in Sumeria, the Mediterranean, Europe and
the Near East. The Ancient Greeks were big fans of the drug. In the
Odyssey, Homer describes a drink commonly believed to be an
opium-based concoction:

Then Helen, daughter of Zeus, turned to new thoughts. Presently
she cast a drug into the wine whereof they drank, a drug to lull all
pain and anger, and bring forgetfullness of every sorrow. Whoso
should drink a draught thereof, when it is mingled in the bowl, on
that day he would let no tear fall down his cheeks, not though his
mother and his father died, not though men slew his brother or dear
son with the sword before his face, and his own eyes beheld it.

Now that's good stuff. Homer was one of the earliest literary
advocates of opium, but he was hardly the only one. Over the course of
centuries, some of the greatest names in literature would sing the
praises of opium, and many credited their work to the drug.

"Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express
train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train
while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something
other than life or death," wrote Jean Cocteau, the French writer and
filmmaker.

Another Frenchman, actor Antonin Artaud, credited his creativity
rather creatively to the absence of opium. "It is not opium which
makes me work but its absence, and in order for me to feel its absence
it must from time to time be present."

British author Thomas De Quincey wrote one of the most famous
tracts about the glories of opium, Confessions of an English
Opium-Eater, published in 1822. The book is a length poem to
opium's splendors, full of rapturous passages describing his
experiences with the drug, such as the first time he took it (to treat
a toothache):

oh! Heavens! what a revulsion! what an upheaving, from its
lowest depths, of the inner spirit! what an apocalypse of the world
within me! That my pains had vanished, was now a trifle in my eyes:
- this negative effect was swallowed up in the immensity of those
positive effects which had opened before me - in the abyss of divine
enjoyment thus suddenly revealed. Here was a panacea - a (pharmakon
nepenthez) for all human woes: here was the secret of happiness,
about which philosophers had disputed for so many ages, at once
discovered: happiness might now be bought for a penny, and carried
in the waistcoat pocket: portable ecstasies might be had corked up
in a pint bottle: and peace of mind could be sent down in gallons by
the mail coach.

As you can see, he kinda liked it.

Oh! just, subtle, and mighty opium! that to the hearts of poor
and rich alike, for the wounds that will never heal, and for "the
pangs that tempt the spirit to rebel," bringest and assuaging balm;
eloquent opium! that with thy potent rhetoric stealest away the
purposes of wrath; and to the guilty man, for one night givest back
the hopes of his youth, and hands washed pure from blood; and to the
proud man, a brief oblivion for Wrongs unredress'd, and insults
unavenged; that summonest to the chancery of dreams, for the
triumphs of suffering innocence, false witnesses; and confoundest
perjury; and dost reverse the sentences of unrighteous judges...

Well, let's just note that it goes on. And on and on. Aside from
promoting excessive verbiage, opium in its most basic form was
relatively inoffensive at the physical level. Most of the negative
health effects associated with opium use had to do with the fact that
the habitualuser eventually became obsessed with the drug, much like DeQuincey.

A true addict, DeQuincey tried to reduce his opium intake at
various points during his life, and he even tried to quit once, for
the sake of science and the completeness of his Confessions. He
managed to go 90 hours before relapsing. DeQuincey resumed his opium
use at a much lower level for a few weeks, but he was obliged to start
using it heavily again when he found himself unable to review the
final proofs of Confessions. As he explained at the end of the
text, DeQuincey had to start using opium again so he could tell people
what it was like to stop using opium. (No sacrifice is too great for
the furtherance of science.)

Opium users like DeQuincey consumed the drug in a variety of forms.
The earliest opium users simply ate the seeds and resin of the poppy
plant, either by itself or baked into a cake or loaf. The flowers and
other parts of the plant could be used for a more subdued rush. Later,
users discovered that opium mixed well with other drugs, such as
alcohol or nicotine.

One of the most popular preparations was laudanum, developed in the
16th century, in which opium was dissolved into alcohol as a beverage
or tincture. Another hybrid, paregoric, was a combination of alcohol,
camphor and opium used to treat diahrrea and persistent coughs.Both
these products were given to children and even babies, either to treat
illnesses or simply to quiet them down.

In recreational use, the combination of opium and tobacco created a
booming industry of opium dens, strange surreal places where smokers
of opiumcongregated to sit steeped in their euphoria. Arthur Conan
Doyle wrote one of the most memorable descriptions of an opium den in
his Sherlock Holmes adventure, The Man With The Twisted Lip, in
which Dr. Watson sets off to rescue a family friend from iniquity:

Ordering my cab to wait, I passed down the steps, worn hollow in
the centre by the ceaseless tread of drunken feet; and by the light
of a flickering oil-lamp above the door I found the latch and made
my way into a long, low room, thick and heavy with the brown opium
smoke, and terraced with wooden berths, like the forecastle of an
emigrant ship.

Through the gloom one could dimly catch a glimpse of bodies lying in
strange fantastic poses, bowed shoulders, bent knees, heads thrown
back, and chins pointing upward, with here and there a dark, lack-lustre
eye turned upon the newcomer. Out of the black shadows there
glimmered little red circles of light, now bright, now faint, as the
burning poison waxed or waned in the bowls of the metal pipes. The
most lay silent, but some muttered to themselves, and others talked
together in a strange, low, monotonous voice, their conversation
coming in gushes, and then suddenly tailing off into silence, each
mumbling out his own thoughts and paying little heed to the words of
his neighbour. At the farther end was a small brazier of burning
charcoal, beside which on a three-legged wooden stool there sat a
tall, thin old man, with his jaw resting upon his two fists, and his
elbows upon his knees, staring into the fire. (...)

"Opium fiends" were often profiled as lean, haggard-looking
individuals, mainly because pursuits like eating and grooming seemed
insignificant when compared to the pursuit of precious, precious
opium.

Opium was so precious, in fact, that nations went to war over
it. The most notable of these incidents were the Opium Wars of the
19th Century. The initial war over opium broke out between
Britain and
China.
China had instituted a restrictive policy on foreign trade, which the
British violated by smuggling opium into the country.

China banned imported opium, and destroyed a major British
shipment, and the Brits responded by invading. China lost. Several
years later, more or less the same dynamic broke out between China and
the British, who were allied with the French the second time around.
China lost again.

Around the same time, several significant developments were taking
place in the world of opium. In 1803, a German pharmacist invented a
method for distilling opium into an immensely more powerful form -
morphine. The good news was that morphine was exponentially more
effective than raw opium in treating pain and other illnesses. The bad
news was that morphine was exponentially more addictive than raw
opium, which was (as we have seen) pretty damn addictive in the first
place.

Things took a turn for the worse (or the better, depending on
your perspective) with the introduction of
heroin
in 1874. The medical community and pharmaceutical companies like Bayer
rushed to embrace both heroin and morphine, making them widely
available over the counter in pharmacies by the beginning of the 20th
century, when the tide of public opinion began to shift.

Although the new breeds of opium derivatives were insanely more
addictive than their predecessor, the entire category of opiates was
lumped together, and the public campaign against drugs of all kinds
treated them as a single scourge in many cases.

In 1914, the U.S. passed the Harrison Narcotics Act, which
restricted the possession and use of opium and its derivatives (as
well as other
drugs) to doctor-prescribed medications only.

It was, of course, ridiculous to suggest that drug use was somehow
un-American.
Benjamin Franklin used opium late in his life, albeit to treat
severe pain. George Washington is also said to have believed in flower
power, although he may have used it as laudanum, a derivative form.

Nevertheless, the 20th century saw a sharp increase in America's
drug hysteria, fueled by racism directed against Chinese laborers who
had come to the U.S. to help build the railroads and brought their
cultural tradition of opium use with them. Many propaganda screeds
invoked images of innocent white women lured into depravity in the
opium dens of San Francisco and elsewhere.

Massive crops of opium poppies are still harvested every year in
Southern Asia and South America, for both "legitimate" and "criminal"
purposes. One of the most important opium economies in recent decades
has been
Afghanistan, where even in the middle of the U.S. invasion,
farmers produced 3,400 tons of opium for shipment around the world.

Under the Taliban, opium exports were even higher. A 2003 study
estimated that 75% of the heroin consumed in Europe is extracted from
Afghan stocks. Opium and heroin trafficking out of Afghanistan totaled
more than $1 billion in 2002. Both before and after the U.S. invasion,
opium trafficking is believed to have helped fund
al Qaeda and other terrorist groups from around Southern Asia.

While the consumption of raw opium is on the decline, demand for
the poppy is still incredibly strong, since morphine has become a
staple of medical anesthesia. Heroin and its derivatives are still
extremely popular among recreational users. Opium may no longer be the
"just, subtle, and mighty" drug of popular choice, but it will still
be a cash crop for years to come, a fact that is no doubt a source of
great comfort to
Osama bin Laden, wherever he might be.

Opium was long used medically in the Middle East, India and China. Opium
was introduced into Japan along with Chinese herbal medicine. Since the
1400s it was used there as a pain killer and there were no legal
restrictions on its cultivation, possession or use. In China non-medical
use of opium became popular from around the middle of the 17th century.
Opium was mixed with tobacco and smoked in pipes, often in so called opium
dens. Addicts would get so attached to the drug that they would rather go
without food than the drug, if they didn't have money for both. In some
parts of Southern China and amongst overseas Chinese in South East Asia
more than one tenth of the population were habitual opium users, make the
addiction almost as common as tobacco addiction is today. Non-medical use
of opium was banned in China in 1729.

THE OPIUM MONOPOLY

BY ELLEN N. LA MOTTE

JAPAN AS AN OPIUM
DISTRIBUTOR

Inan article which
appeared in the New York Times, under date of February 14,
1919, we read: "A charge that the Japanese Government secretly fosters
the morphia traffic in China and other countries in the Far East is
made by a correspondent in the North China Herald in its issue
of December 21st last. The correspondent asserts that the traffic has
the financial support of the Bank of Japan, and that the Japanese
postal service in China aids, although 'Japan is a signatory to the
agreement which forbids the import into China of morphia or of any
appliances used in its manufacture or application.'

"Morphia no longer can be purchased in Europe, the correspondent
writes. The seat of industry has been transferred to Japan, and
morphia is now manufactured by the Japanese themselves. Literally,
tens of millions of yen are transferred annually from China to Japan
for the payment of Japanese morphia. . . .

"In South China, morphia is sold by Chinese peddlers, each of
whom carries a passport certifying that he is a native of Formosa, and
therefore entitled to Japanese protection. Japanese drug stores
throughout China carry large stocks of morphia. Japanese medicine
vendors look to morphia for their largest profits. Wherever Japanese
are predominant, there the trade flourishes. Through Dairen, morphia
circulates throughout Manchuria and the province adjoining; through
Tsingtao, morphia is distributed over Shantung province, Anhui, and
Kiangsu, while from Formosa morphia is carried with opium and other
contraband by motor-driven fishing boats to some point on the
mainland, from which it is distributed throughout the province of
Fukien and the north of Kuangtung. Everywhere it is sold by Japanese
under extra-territorial protection."

The article is rather long, and proves beyond doubt the
existence of a well-organized and tremendous smuggling business, by
means of which China is being deluged with morphia. In the body of the
article we find this paragraph:

"While the morphia traffic is large, there is every reason to
believe that the opium traffic upon which Japan is embarking with
enthusiasm, is likely to prove even more lucrative. In the Calcutta
opium sales, Japan has become one of the considerable purchasers of
Indian opium. . . . Sold by the Government of India, this opium
is exported under permits applied for by the Japanese Government,
is shipped to Kobe, and from Kobe is transshipped to Tsingtao. Large
profits are made in this trade, in which are interested some of the
leading firms of Japan."

This article appears to be largely anti-Japanese. In fact, more
anti-Japanese than anti-opium. Anti Japanese sentiment in America is
played upon by showing up the Japanese as smugglers of opium. The part
the British Government plays in this traffic is not emphasized. "In
the Calcutta opium sales, Japan has become one of the considerable
purchasers of Indian opium . . . sold by the Government of India." We
are asked to condemn the Japanese, who purchase their stocks of opium
as individuals, and who distribute it in the capacity of smugglers. We
are not asked to censure the British Government which produces,
manufactures and sells this opium as a State monopoly. We are asked to
denounce the Japanese and their nefarious smuggling and shameful
traffic, but the source of supply, which depends upon these smugglers
as customers at the monthly auctions, is above reproach. A delicate
ethical distinction.

However, there is no doubt that the Japanese are ardent
smugglers. In an article in the March, 1919, number of "Asia" by
Putnam Weale, we find the following bit: * "At all ports where
Japanese commissioners of Maritime Customs (in China) hold office, it
is undeniable that centres of contraband trade have been established,
opium and its derivatives being so openly smuggled that the annual net
import of Japanese morphia (although this trade is forbidden by
International Convention) is now said to be something like 20 tons a
year-sufficient to poison a whole nation."

* " A Fair Chance for Asia," by Putnam Weale,
page 227.

Mr. Weale is an Englishman, therefore more anti-Japanese than
anti-opium. We do not recall any of his writings in which he protests
against the opium trade as conducted by his Government, nor the part
his Government plays in fostering and encouraging it.

However, there are other Englishmen who see the situation in a
more impartial light, and who are equally critical of both Great
Britain and Japan. In his book, Trade Politics and Christianity in
Africa and the East," by A. J. Macdonald, M. A., formerly of Trinity
College, Cambridge, we find the facts presented with more balance.
Thus, on page 229: ". . . In the north of China another evil is
springing up. The eradication of the opium habit is being followed by
the development of the morphia traffic. . . . The morphia habit in
northern China, especially Manchuria, is already widespread. The
Chinese Government is alert to the evil, but their efforts to repress
it are hampered by the action of traders, mainly Japanese, who elude
the restrictions imposed by the Chinese and Japanese Governments. . .
. China is being drenched with morphia. It is incredible that anything
approaching the amount could possibly be devoted to legitimate
purposes. It is said that in certain areas coolies are to be seen
covered all over with needle punctures.' An injection of the drug can
be obtained for three or four cents. In Newchang 2,000 Victims of the
morphia habit died in the winter of 1914-15. Morphia carries off its
victims far more rapidly than opium. . . . Morphia is not yet
manufactured in any appreciable quantities in the East, and certainly
even Japan cannot yet manufacture the hypodermic injectors by means of
which the drug is received. The bulk of the manufacture takes place in
England, Germany and Austria. . . . In this traffic, two firms in
Edinburgh and one in London are engaged. The trade is carried on
through Japanese agents. The Board of Trade returns show that the
export of morphia from Great Britain to the East has risen enormously
during the last few years.

1911 - 5.5 tons
1912 - 7.5 tons
1913 - 11.25
1914 -- 14

The freedom which allows three British firms to supply China
with morphia for illicit purposes is a condemnation of English
Christianity.

This book of Mr. Macdonald's was published in 1916. Mr. Weale's
article was published in 1919, in which he speaks of an importation of
about twenty tons of morphia.Apparently the three British
firms which manufacture morphia, two in Edinburgh and one in London
are still going strong. Japan, however, appears to be growing
impatient with all this opprobrium cast upon her as the distributor of
drugs, especially since much of the outcry against this comes from
America. Our own country seems to be assisting in this traffic in a
most extensive manner. The Japan Society Bulletin No. 60 calls
attention to this:

NEW TURN IN MORPHIA TRAFFIC

The morphia traffic in China has taken a new turn, according to
the Japan Advertiser. It quotes Putnam Weale to the effect that
whilst in recent years the main distributors have been Japanese, the
main manufacturers have been British. The morphia has been exported in
large quantities from Edinburgh to Japan, but as the result of
licensing the exports of this drug from Great Britain, the shipments
to Japan dropped from 6oo,229 ounces in 1917 to
one-fourth that amount in 1918. The Japan Chronicle, speaking
from "absolutely authentic information," states that 113,000 ounces of
morphia arrived in Kobe from the United States in the first five
months of 1919. These figures are not given as the total shipments
received in Kobe, but merely as the quantity of which The Chronicle
has actual knowledge. It states further that this morphia is being
transhipped in Kobe harbor to vessels bound for China. Dr. Paul S.
Reinsch, who has resigned his post as Minister to China, has stated
that he will use every resource in his power to stop the shipment from
America of morphia intended for distribution in China, in defiance of
the international convention which prohibits the sale of the drug in
that country.

If sufficient publicity is cast upon the distributors, Japanese,
English and American, public sentiment may in time take cognizance of
the source of all this mischief, namely, the producer.

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed
U.S. efforts to prevent heroin trafficking, focusing on the: (1)
extent to which heroin poses a threat to the United States; (2)
impediments to heroin control efforts in Southeast Asia; and (3)
United Nations Drug Control Program's (UNDCP) effectiveness in Burma.

GAO found that: (1) Americans consume between 10 and 15 metric tons
of heroin per year, which is at least double the amount consumed
annually during the mid-1980s; (2) heroin use has increased mainly
because the price has dropped significantly and the availability,
quality, and safety of ingestion of heroin have increased; (3) there
may be as many as 600,000 hardcore heroin users in the United States,
and the user population appears to be rising; (4) the key to effective
U.S. heroin control efforts is stopping the flow of heroin from Burma,
which is responsible for about 60 percent of worldwide heroin
production; (5) the United States' continued support of
counternarcotics efforts in Thailand and effective relations with the
Thai government have resulted in the abatement of heroin production
and trafficking in Thailand; (6) although the U.S. has supported UNDCP
drug control projects in Burma, projects have been largely
ineffective, since they have been too small in scope, were
inadequately planned, and have not gained support from the Burmese
government; and (7) controlling heroin trafficking from Burma is
difficult because U.S. human rights policy prohibits counternarcotics
assistance to Burma, the Burmese government is not committed to drug
control efforts, heroin-producing regions have different distribution
methods, and China has not adequately cooperated with U.S. law
enforcement in monitoring drug-trafficking routes from Burma.

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SAYAD, Afghanistan — After decades of occupation and conflict,
this nation is finally embracing democracy as returns from
Afghanistan's first presidential election point to interim
leader Hamid Karzai as the victor. But a competing power
structure no Afghan voted for is lurking just off the political
stage: a deeply rooted and ever-expanding opium industry.

Afghanistan is at once the world's newest democracy and its
largest producer of heroin. This year the country had a record
opium crop. The narcotic feeds 95% of Europe's addiction and
generates an estimated $30 billion in revenue. Most comes from
street sales outside Afghanistan.

But even the $2.5 billion that stays in Afghanistan amounts to
a third of its economy. The money corrupts government officials,
who tolerate trafficking, and finances warlords and terror groups
like the Taliban who encourage cultivation and elicit protection
money from smuggler.

National and international leaders say an infant democracy and
a narco-economy cannot co-exist here. One must gain leverage of
the other.

The country has made huge progress on the political side," says
Antonio Maria Costa, director of the United Nations Office on
Drugs and Crime in Vienna. "On the narcotics front, I would not
only say there has been no progress, but a worsening of the
situation."

Doug Wankel, a former Drug
Enforcement Administration official who is point man for
the U.S. counternarcotics initiative at the American
Embassy in Kabul, says the opium industry is "financing
terrorism. It's financing subversive activities. It's
financing warlordism. ... And if it's a threat to the
government of Afghanistan, it's a direct threat to the
national security interests of the United States."

Final U.N. figures on this year's
opium harvest will be out early next month. But officials
like Robert Charles, U.S. assistant secretary of State for
international narcotics and law enforcement affairs,
predict a record opium poppy cultivation covering a
cumulative area just less than 500 square miles — about
the size of the city of Los Angeles.

Before anything can be done, the
nation must select a new leader. By Tuesday, results from
the Oct. 9 vote showed Karzai had 55.5% of the votes, 39
points ahead of his closest rival. An official
announcement declaring Karzai the winner is expected later
this week.

Costa, Wankel, Charles and others
say that the president must move quickly to cleanse the
government of drug-corrupted provincial governors and
central government Cabinet ministers to begin reversing
the drug's grip on Afghan government.

He needs to begin the process of
wringing out any narcotic influence at any levels in order
to be able to go forward," says Charles, whose office
already is training Afghan police, border patrol officers,
judges and prosecutors necessary to carry out a drug
crackdown.

There is a growing sense of urgency
within a U.S. administration eager to avoid any tarnish on
what is otherwise a foreign-policy success story.
"Amazing, isn't it?" President Bush exclaimed of the
Afghan election at an Oct. 9 Iowa campaign stop. "Freedom
is beautiful."

Andrew Natsios, head of the U.S.
Agency for International Development (USAID), which is
developing an alternative livelihood program to discourage
Afghanistan farmers from growing poppies, says, "The
president is quite concerned about this and has given us
instructions to move this into high gear."

'Because we need the money'

Nowhere is the evidence of a rising
drug tide more evident than among the dirt-poor,
subsistence farmers of the small village of Sayad, 10
miles north of a sprawling U.S. military base at Bagram
outside Kabul. Farmers tilling the arid fields and living
in the mud-walled homes say they have lived for
generations off the tomatoes, cotton, wheat, rice and corn
grown on tiny parcels of land.

Until now. Last spring, the village
was visited by men from Nangarhar Province, southeast of
here astride the trade route from Kabul to Islamabad,
Pakistan. The men came with poppy seeds and a promise to
pay 10,000 Afghanis - worth $225 to $250 - for each
kilogram or 2.2 pounds, of raw, harvested opium.

Mahrwouf, 20, who like many
Afghans, goes by one name, says he and most of the other
farmers took up the offer. On his five acres, Mahrwouf
harvested just under 9 pounds of opium this year. He
earned nearly $1,000, more money than he's ever seen. It
paid off the debt from his wedding six months ago. "The
villagers are very poor people, so they decided to plant
the poppy," he says. "We'll do it again. Because we need
the money."

In an agrarian nation where
per-capita income is $186 a year, 16% of the roads are
paved, 12% of the people have access to a sanitation
system and barely two out of 1,000 have use of a
telephone, that kind of cash crop is irresistible to the
estimated 264,000 farmers.

Afghan Finance Minister Ashraf
Ghani, a former World Bank official who spent 20 years in
the USA, has for more than a year expressed concern that
his country could tumble into a "narco-mafia state" where
real power emanates from a group of drug kingpins, rather
than a duly elected central government.

"Opium, unfortunately, is the ideal
crop for a drought-stricken country and for a country
where labor-intensive work is the demand," Ghani says.
"It's a deeply threatening phenomenon."

He says the massive turnout in the
election gives him hope that a leader with a popular
mandate can move against a rising drug tide. The
challenges include:

• Taking on warlords governing
poppy producing provinces, such as Helmand and Nangarhar.
Karzai has demonstrated a willingness to do this. Most
recently, he replaced longtime-warlord Ismail Khan as
governor of Herat and deployed U.S.-trained Afghan
national army troops to provide security.

• Arresting drug kingpins, some of
whom have sizable militias. Charles says there are six to
12 top Afghan smugglers who must be targeted. He
identifies two: Haji Juma Khan, who has links with the
Taliban, and former Taliban money supplier Haji Bashir
Noorzai, who is tied to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror
network. According to House International Relations
Committee testimony this year, Noorzai smuggles 4,400 lbs.
of heroinout of the Kandahar region to al-Qaeda
operatives in Pakistan every eight weeks.

• Destroying drug labs and
refineries. Thomas O'Connell, assistant secretary of
Defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict,
has testified before Congress that the U.S. government,
through various means including satellites, can pinpoint
labs and refineries. Afghans just need the manpower to go
after them.

• Instituting an
alternative-livelihood program that goes beyond merely
encouraging the growing of alternative crops. Rural
development programs, education and even non-farm
employment opportunities would need to be offered,
according to aSeptember study by the World Bank. This
would require massive international funding, Ghani says.

The last step is crucial. According
to the World Bank study, opium's grip on the Afghan
economy, with its weak government and lack of security, is
unprecedented because of the nation's reliance on drug
revenue. So suffocating is the illicit industry here that
if an internationally supported eradication and
interdiction program was immediately successful, the
economy would slip into a recession.

"Time is always our enemy," says
Charles, who warns that the drug industry is becoming even
more deeply entrenched in Afghan economy and society.

Under the December 2001 Bonn peace
agreement that laid out a nation-building plan for
Afghanistan, the British agreed to take the lead on
counternarcotics, the Germanson training police and the
Italians on building a judicial system.

The United States, tasked with
building an Afghan national army, has provided the largest
security force: 18,000 U.S. troops to pursue remnants of
the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

But the other countries are not
moving fast enough on their commitments, says Wankel, the
Kabul-based counternarcotics coordinator. So the United
States has stepped in with money and resources to push all
three areas.

"They don't seem to have the same
sense of urgency," Wankel says of the coalition partners.
"Where we see it's not moving at the ... level or the
speed we think, we're going to step in and we're going to
work with them to help them get it to the level and to the
speed which we think it needs."

He adds, "We really believe that
within two years, we've got to see the pendulum swing."

Signs of growing sophistication

For now, the pendulum is moving in
the wrong direction, according to the World Bank. Since
the demise of the Taliban, the flowering plant has spread
from the top-producing poppy provinces to 28 of the
nation's 32 provinces. Poppy cultivation now employs an
estimated 2 million Afghans, who can earn about $7 a day,
more than two times the average scale for unskilled Afghan
labor.

The opium they produce earns a
farmer 57 times as much as wheat, the next most profitable
crop. But it has had an insidious effect on the poorest
planters. Farm prices for poppy have declined as
production has increased. Many farmers, who borrowed to
pay for staples to get them through the winter, are
falling into debt. Rural credit lines for farmers would be
another important facet of an alternative livelihood
program.

Among the reasons officials feel a
sense of urgency is that the drug industry here is not yet
an organized, price-controlling cartel as with Colombia
and cocaine. But the system is showing new signs of
sophistication. In the past, most heroin was processed in
neighboring countries along the smuggling route to Europe.
Now, it's processed here.

Eradication efforts have had mixed
results. A 2002 British-led initiative to destroy fields
and compensate the farmers and an effort in 2003 to
encourage local governors to destroy poppy crops failed.
The compensation program only encouraged other farmers,
eager for government compensation, to grow poppies. And
local governors used their eradication efforts to punish
enemies.

With British and U.S. assistance,
there was limited success this year with interdiction and
eradication by newly organized central government forces.
Most notably, a British-trained 150-man commando-style
unit known as the Afghan Special Narcotics Force in the
past six months has destroyed 50 tons of opiates, 32
processing labs and made 20 arrests. The unit, also called
Force 333, reports directly to Karzai and Interior
Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali, and uses U.S. transport
helicopters and pilots to transport them on missions.

The United States, meanwhile, is
paying Afghan laborers $10 a day to chop down poppy
plants. Under this program, about 2,000 acres have been
eradicated.

To offset the common practice of
arrested drug dealers bribing their way to freedom, the
United States will begin training a core Afghan group of
10 prosecutors, 10 police investigators and five judges to
act as a special task force to prosecute high-profile drug
smugglers.

The unit, Wankel says, should be up
and running by March. It will work out of offices in a
refurbished section of Pol-e-Charki Prison outside Kabul.
Wankel says the new program could cost the United States
$300 million to $400 million in the next few years.

Bill Rammell, Parliamentary
Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth
Affairs, who oversees British efforts in Afghanistan, says
his nation is spending $150-$200 million on
counternarcotics there.

"We do have the plans and the
strategy in place to meet our targets and begin to
reverse, I would hope, the tide by this time next year,"
Rammell says.

But Mahrwouf and other Afghan
farmers who have limited choices and almost no enforcement
see only opium in their future. "If the Americans would
give me a job at Bagram air base," he says with a grin. "I
would stop growing it."

JAKARTA
, Indonesia -- The tattooed, tired-looking heroin addicts who
navigate the capital's congested alleyways to get to this quaint
Dutch colonial house every day are not looking for a fix. They
come for the free needles and a chance to talk _ part of
government efforts to stem the rise in HIV cases. The Stigma
center _ named for the discrimination that many HIV-positive
people face _ would at first seem out of place in Indonesia , a
socially conservative country with a history of executing drug
dealers and sending small-time users to prison. But with drug
addicts accounting for as many as 80 percent of y critical to addressing the global TB crisis and
achieving the Millennium Development Goals," said Ms. Schwalbe.
"I am thrilled to help guide the Alliance 's work with policy
makers, academics, activists, and private sector partners in the
effort to develop a faster cure, affordable and accessible to
those who need better medicines most."

Ms.
Schwalbe holds a Masters of Public Health from Columbia
University , a certificate from the Harriman Institute in Soviet
Studies, and a Bachelor of Arts in Russian and Soviet Studies
from Harvard University . Author of several peer-reviewed
articles, she has served on the board of the European
Observatory on Health Care Systems, and the International Gay
and Lesbian Human Rights Coalition. Ms. Schwalbe currently
serves on the board of theennium Project's Task force on HIV/AIDS, Malaria, TB and
Access to Essential Medicines.

About multi-drug resistant strains, and improve treatment of latent
infection. The TB Alliance builds a portfolio of promising drug
candidates, manages their development through cooperative deals
with public and private partners, and provides staged funding
and expert scientific and management guidanceopical Diseases in
Singapore , the Korean Research Institute of Chemical Technology
(KRICT), University of Illinois at Chicago , Johns Hopkins
University and the Research Triangle Institute. For more
information, visit http://www.tballiance.org .
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050705/nytu089.html?.v=14

Nearly
3,000 people from more than 60 countries, including those in
Africa and the Middle East, who took part in the ICAAP
conference shared the recognition that the region is "at a
crossroads" in terms of the epidemic, with 12 million new
infections expected in the next five years without immediate
action. Representatives of people living with HIV/AIDS such as
sex workers and gays as well as their supporters demanded urgent
action from each government, in line with previous declarations
made at the United Nations and a ministerial conference on AIDS,
including adequate health budgets.

"Every
hour, more than 148 Asians contract HIV, the overall proportion
of people in the region with advanced HIV infection receiving
ARVs (antiretroviral treatment, an advanced therapy said to
suppress HIV) remains pitifully low," said Periasamy Kousalya
from India on behalf of key nongovernmental organizations.

"We demand
that our governments work in equal and meaningful partnership
with civil society, including people living with HIV and
vulnerable populations, in addressing the control of the
epidemic," she said, seeking enhanced counseling and testing as
well as a reduced stigma related to the disease especially among
healthcare workers.

Maura Mea,
a Papua New Guinean HIV-positive who contracted the disease from
her husband, said at the closing ceremony, "We need
actions...and community-driven leadership. The voice of positive
people needs to be strengthened and needs to reach out loud and
clear to every government department in every country." Prasada
Rao, director of the regional support team at the Joint United
Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, said that in a region where 1, 500
people die each day due to AIDS, "Business as usual is no longer
an option."

Rao said
that every government in the region agreed in 2001 on the goals
in the UN Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS, but not a
single one has met them. "We don't need any additional
commitments -- they already exist. What we need now is to act on
them." Both Rao and Masayoshi Tarui, vice secretary general of
the conference's local organizing committee, warned that Japan
is facing AIDS-related problems similar to those in the rest of
Asia .

Rao
commended Japan for its 500 million US dollars pledge to a
global fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, but urged
the country to "intensify sex education in schools and
prevention efforts in general" to counter the growing number of
reports of infections among young people and men who have sex
with other men.

Tarui
lamented the apparent lack of interest in the HIV/AIDS issue in
the country, which was represented by the absence of Japanese
ministers at the meeting despite attendance by some ministers
from other Asian countries. He also noted that Japanese
participants accounted for only one- third of the total. Muthu
Puravalen of the Asia Pacific Council of AIDS Service
Organizations said at a press conference that it is meaningless
to discuss political leadership without government
participation, suggesting fund provision is not enough.

"It has to
be 'Walk the talk'," he said. Masahiro Kihara, secretary general
of the local organizing committee, said the Kobe conference
helped enhance solidarity among those concerned about HIV/AIDS
issues in Japan and other parts of Asia , and expressed his
expectation that stronger ties will be an effective tool in the
fight against the disease in the region. The next Asia-Pacific
AIDS conference is slated to be held in Colombo in 2007. The
Kobe gathering was originally scheduled to be held in 2003 but
was put off due to the outbreak of SARS in the region that year.
http://english.people.com.cn/200507/05/eng20050705_194245.html

Find below
a listing of the KC on-site reports from the 7th ICAAP
conference available to date. Please forward this message onto
anyone who might be interested. An updated listing will be sent
out when all reports are completed.

• Opening
ceremony
• ARV expansion happening – but gaps in care services persist
• Beyond '3by5'
• Staying Alive with HIV during the long wait for ARVs
• Government-NGO cooperation – 'all-or-nothing' not the only way
• Making GIPA a reality – by 'using' national frameworks?
• HIV testing: Routinely offered or routinely imposed?
• Global Fund gets new cash injection from Japan , but may still
face deficit
• Methadone comes of age, at last
• First, do no harm
• Getting HIV/AIDS back in focus
• We've Read It For You: A scaled up response to AIDS in Asia
and the Pacific (UNAIDS, July 2005)
• HIV/AIDS in Japan : Warning signals not heard?
• MAP reports call specific services to reduce HIV risks on a
large scale
• Where drugs and sex meet - nexus
• Women and young people on the move
• Fighting the epidemic with Islam in Malaysia

Free needles no solution

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

BY RONALD L. RICE

The quality of life in New Jersey has been negatively affected by the
rising gang crisis. Once viewed as an urban problem, gangs are taking
over suburban, and now even rural, communities. The drug market is
fueling the gangs and it's evident that gangs are becoming hungry for
more power over the drug trade. As drug use and drug trafficking
continue, the gangs are becoming stronger, more organized and
increasingly violent.

Gang members aren't just killing members of rival gangs. Innocent
children fall victim every day to gang-related crime. Gangs are bringing
more guns into our state to fight for drug turf, and the victims are
those in the community who can no longer go safely outside. Even during
the day, senior citizens are afraid to walk to their neighborhood stores
because of the violence on the streets. Children no longer feel safe
when they walk to school, and working families have to barricade
themselves inside their homes, hoping to avoid the gunfire outside their
windows.

In order to stop the gangs, we need to stop the drugs. We need to
reclaim our streets from the gangs by stopping the movement of guns and
drugs into New Jersey, providing alternatives to joining gangs, and
getting drug users off drugs for good.

Needle-exchange programs will not help the citizens of our state.
Needle exchange does nothing to stop drug abuse or clean up our streets.
A program that provides access to syringes says that we give up on the
people of New Jersey and would rather hand out the tools to use drugs,
than the tools people can use to better themselves and their
communities.

I oppose the idea of handing out free needles to those on drugs,
because it sends the wrong message. I feel we need to focus our
resources on treatment -- not free needles. Some think that needles may
help slow the spread of diseases, but free needles provide an excuse for
drug users to put off facing the harsh truth that they need to stop
abusing drugs. Free needles will allow gangs to continue to murder in
the name of increasing their power in the drug market. Free needles will
increase the number of homicides, suicides and overdoses. Free needles
keep residents prisoners in their own homes, especially those in urban
areas.

Even those who favor needle exchange in New Jersey agree about the
need for a proven method to get people off drugs and reducing the spread
of HIV/AIDS is treatment. I have been fighting hard for years to get
funding for drug treatment. I have been pushing for the establishment of
regional long-term care facilities and outpatient substance abuse
treatment programs that would meet the needs of those in New Jersey who
are living with HIV/AIDS. I will continue to work to get the resources
that are needed to get people off drugs and back on track because I
understand the pain and suffering that those on drugs go through every
day.

I don't understand why we can approve millions of dollars for
stem-cell research without knowing what the outcome of that research
will be. We know that drug treatment works, yet we have only one
residential long-term care HIV/AIDS treatment facility. I understand why
we approved about $200 million for mental-health patients for
residential treatment and other help they need, but I do not understand
why some legislators would deny the same type of assistance for those
with HIV/AIDS.

I am the sponsor of S-445, a bill to create at least three long-term
care facilities and three outpatient substance-abuse treatment programs.
The facilities would be located in the northern, central and southern
areas of the state. Treatment facilities would provide on-site
mental-health services; substance-abuse treatment and counseling;
physician, dental and social work services; speech/language pathology
assistance and literacy classes.

My bill also calls for similar outpatient treatment programs. It's
very sad that state government wants to provide free needles in order to
address the health-care problems where the majority of the victims are
African-Americans, Latinos and women. With more needles on the streets,
we are keeping drug users junkies for the rest of their lives and
allowing gang members to continue to wage deadly wars in our
communities.

Minorities and women are people too. They want to be off drugs-- not
on drugs. They want to have homes -- not be homeless. They want to have
jobs -- not be jobless. The bottom line is that they want to be an asset
to their families and their communities. The question is: Why are some
legislators opposed to this reality?

Sen. Ronald L. Rice is a Democrat who represents to 28th District. He
also is a member of the New Jersey Senate Health, Human Services and
Senior Citizens Committee.

In 1984, he was jailed for three years for robbery. He came out a
drug addict and is now infected with the AIDS virus.

"I contracted HIV by injecting drugs. I shared needles," said
41-year-old Chan who has been in and out of a home for reforming drug
addicts and convicts in Kuala Lumpur for the past 15 years.

"Drugs were cheaper in prison because there were a lot of big
pushers," he explained, sitting in the living room of an old
double-storey brick house he shares with 23 other residents.

Malaysia, a conservative, mainly Muslim
country, has some of the world's toughest anti-drugs laws. But the HIV
virus is spreading rapidly due to illegal drug use and a lack of sex
education, raising fears of an epidemic.

Delivering a loud wake-up call to the government,
the World Health Organisation warned last year that Malaysia was on
the brink of an HIV epidemic.

At the start of 2006, HIV cases in Malaysia totalled 70,559 in a
population of about 26 million, while 10,663 patients had full-blown
AIDS, official data showed.

The numbers are much lower than Thailand which has 560,000 HIV
patients, but Malaysian health officials are worried by the
exponential rise in HIV cases.

In 2005, new AIDS cases in Malaysia totalled 1,221 compared with
233 in 1995.

By contrast, neighbouring Thailand has more than halved the
number of new HIV infections over the past decade, thanks to
aggressive promotion of condom use among sex workers.

"For HIV, the trend has been always upward in Malaysia and we're
getting very worried," Malaysian Health Minister Chua Soi Lek, who was
appointed to the post in 2004, said in an interview.

"People are in a state of denial," he
added. FREE CONDOMS, NEEDLES

Only last year did the government start handing
out free condoms and needles -- a move it had earlier opposed on
grounds that it promoted free sex and rampant drug usage.

It now plans to spend 500 million ringgit ($136 million) on
programmes to combat AIDS, including needle distribution.

HIV is most commonly spread in Malaysia by drug users, with male
AIDS patients outnumbering females by about 10 to 1.

About 60 percent of those believed to have HIV were Malays -- the
largest and most religiously conservative of Malaysia's ethnic groups.
Most of them were unemployed.

AIDS activist groups blame inadequate enforcement of drug laws
and a lack of sex education for the rapid rise in cases.

"The reality is we're losing the war," said Pax Tan, a leader of a
Christian group involved in combating HIV and drug use.

The government is starting to fight back.

HIV education will soon be taught during the national service
programme for youths, Chua said, after surveys showed a rise in
unprotected sex and widespread ignorance about HIV among youth.

Government data showed that about a quarter of AIDS cases from
1986 to 2005 involved those between 13 to 29 years of age.

"With the funding promised by the government,
we are very confident that we'll be able to see a plateau in the rate
of increase, maybe by 2010 or 2009," Chua said.

SEX AND DRUGS

Despite Malaysia's growing affluence and western trappings, the
country remains outwardly conservative on sex.

Kuala Lumpur -- which started in the mid-19th century as a tin
settlement with brothels, gambling booths and opium dens -- is packed
with clubs brimming with drugs and alcohol but is also a place where
kissing and hugging are forbidden in public parks.

With no sex education at schools, some youths believe that HIV can
be transmitted by mosquitoes, fleas or bedbugs.

Religious leaders are deeply opposed to the distribution of free
needles and condoms.

"(It) will encourage people to have free sex. We must address the
root of the problem," said Ahmad Awang, a spokesman at the Parti Islam
se-Malaysia (PAS), the country's largest Islamic opposition party.

Instead he suggested tightening government
controls on entertainment outlets and night-time curfews for youths.

Wong Kim Kong, of the National Evangelical Christian
Fellowship Malaysia, believes traditional values may stop the spread
of AIDS rather than free condoms and needles.

"Abstinence is the most important habit
that we need to develop," he said. ($1=3.6700 ringgit)

Slow start for needle exchange

Controversial program designed to limit the spread of AIDs

By ADAM TAYLOR, The News Journal

Posted Saturday, October 7, 2006

Drug prevention specialist Rochelle
Booker speaks with a 20-year-old man in Wilmington this week
about sexually transmitted diseases. Her employer, Brandywine
Counseling, has been hired to run the pilot needle-exchange
program approved by the Legislature in June. (Buy
photo)The News
Journal/JENNIFER CORBETT

The five-year pilot program, passed by the state Legislature
in June, is designed to slow the spread of AIDS. It will cost
more than $300,000 in the first year and is expected to start in
February.

It will operate only in Wilmington.

The lagtime between the program's passage and its
implementation was designed to give officials time to answer the
many murky legal questions involved in providing fresh needles
to people with an illegal habit. City police remain leery of the
program and concerned about possible ramifications.

"I deal with all the collateral damage," Wilmington police
Chief Michael Szczerba said at a meeting last week of a
committee set up to guide the program through its launch.

The delayed startup also is meant to help educational
outreach efforts aimed at police and residents, many of whom
stridently oppose the program, and addicts, who live underground
lives and are wary of coming to the van.

Such efforts are key to the program's success, said Basha
Closic, a drug prevention specialist for Brandywine Counseling,
the group hired by the state to run the needle-exchange program.

"We have been trying for 10 years to get this law passed,"
she said. "Before the van rolls out, we want to be sure we do
the advance work right."

Addicts will come to the van to sign up for the program. Once
signed up, participants will hand in one dirty needle in
exchange for a new, sterile needle. HIV testing will be offered
through the van, as will treatment opportunities for HIV
management, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, and counseling.

In 2004, Delaware had the nation's sixth-highest AIDS
infection rate. Through 2004, 48 percent of the state's AIDS
patients were intravenous drug users or people who had sex with
them -- 17 percent higher than the national average.

Legal questions abound

Several questions came up at a recent meeting of the
committee overseeing the program's implementation. Szczerba and
other critics said the law is short on specifics for handling
tough scenarios.

There were so many unanswered questions that committee
Chairman Dr. Jaime Rivera, the director of the state's Division
of Public Health, decided state prosecutors and police officers
need to meet this month with health officials and social workers
who will run the program. Together, they will draft a set of
guidelines that will determine how such situations will be
handled.

The oversight committee will review the guidelines in early
December, Rivera said.

Szczerba, a longtime detractor of the program, raised several
issues:

•Are his undercover drug agents supposed to ignore addicts
who line up at the van if it makes a stop where a surveillance
operation is taking place?

•What should his officers do if they catch someone with one
program needle and one illicit one?

•Can his officers arrest someone after a vehicle chase that
starts in the city but ends in New Castle County, where the law
says people are not exempt from prosecution for having a program
needle?

Effects on society questioned

In addition to the tricky scenarios Szczerba expects his
officers to face while on patrol, he worries about broader
effects, too.

"What about officer apathy? Will they be less likely to make
an arrest for possessing illegal needles now that they're told
it's OK for some people to have them?" he said. "How about
community apathy? Will a family who sees someone injecting drugs
in a park not call the police to report it after they've heard
about a program saying some needles are OK to have?"

State Rep. John C. Atkins, R-Millsboro, a lead opponent of
the program, said he remains troubled by a law that allows
minors to get free needles without parental consent.

"I think a parent would rather see their child taken to a
treatment center than getting a free needle," he said. "And will
the state get sued if a kid ODs with a needle given to them by
the government?"

Atkins also wants to know if a young addict in the program
can take a legal needle to school.

City Public Safety Director James Mosley wants to know --
especially with a rash of recent deaths linked to fentanyl-laced
heroin -- if the people who run the program would give police
needles that could be evidence in a criminal case.

It's unclear, too, when addicts will get cut
off if they repeatedly come to the van with nonprogram needles
in exchange for program needles. When the program is introduced,
addicts will be able to bring an illicit needle to the
one-for-one exchange program. But they won't be cut off right
away if they return with another dirty one, state health
department representative Jim Dickinson said.

Those are the types of questions the guidelines will try to
address, Rivera said.

State Sen. Margaret Rose Henry, D-Wilmington East, who fought
for years to get the program passed, said the obstacles are not
unexpected -- or insurmountable.

"This is the law, and now we need to make it work," she said,
noting the oversight committee was formed to deal with such
issues.

Law passed; disagreement looms

Obvious tension existed between the program's supporters and
detractors at the recent committee meeting, held last week at
the Delaware Health and Social Services' campus on U.S. 13 near
New Castle.

Henry noted that the majority of Wilmington council members
supported the program.

Szczerba said that's irrelevant, noting that the council has
opposed the Patriot Act as well.

"I enforce the law and accept that this one has been passed,"
he said.

Szczerba and state health officials said officers and
neighborhood groups will be alerted that the vans will be
coming.

Health department worker Dickinson said certain details of
the program must be kept confidential so that addicts can trust
the program enough to use it. For example, he's against
providing civic groups with detailed information about times and
locations of vans in their neighborhoods and wary of helping
police too much with investigations.

Participants in Wilmington's needle exchange pilot program,
who will have to get state-issued identification cards to use
the program, will be able to exchange a used needle for a new,
sterile one at a van that will travel through the city. The
program is open to all intravenous drug users, including
minors, who live in Wilmington.

The short-term goals include: * HIV testing for 80 percent
of participants within 90 days of enrollment. * Getting 80
percent of those testing positive into HIV treatment. *
Getting 40 percent of those patients to accept referrals. *
Getting 25 percent of those who accept the referrals to show
up. * Keeping public protest or resistance to the program low.

The long-term goals include: * An ongoing increase in the
number of people getting HIV tests. * Reducing HIV rates of
partners of IV drug users by 5 percent. * Reducing the number
of AIDS-diagnosed people by 25 percent.